Category: News

For the Oconee County Planning Commission, during its first 2021 meeting, there was little to do, with the exception of electing officers.  For this year, Mike Smith will chair the group.  Smith’s place was secured on a vote from a motion by Frankie Pearson.

Senator Lindsey Graham supports Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s push to delay the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump for at least three weeks.  It’s believed that Trump is having trouble securing a defense team, although there are reports that a South Carolina lawyer named Butch Bowers is in line to be part of the team to defend Trump against […]

Oconee Sheriff’s employee Helen Westmoreland gets credit for acquiring a pair of grants that’ll strengthen two of the sheriff’s programs that rely on money outside of taxpayers’ dollars.  The Sheriff’s Foundation received a grant of $7,920.22; Crimestoppers picked up $14,424.40.  The money comes through the South Carolina CARES Act, part of COVID-19 legislation put through the state legislature at the […]

  A 32-year old man from Westminster has been arrested on the charge of criminal sexual conduct with a minor first degree. Announcement from the arresting agency, the Oconee Sheriff’s Office, states that Ricky Lynn Lee Jr. was arrested Tuesday after a deputy sheriff went to the Oconee hospital in response to reports of a possible sexual assault.  The sheriff’s […]

The superintendent for Oconee public schools dismisses the notion that the district’s younger students seem to be more prone, of late, to be contracting COVID-19 than, say, the county’s high school population.  Dr. Michael Thorsland also explained today why the district’s virus tracking page is not equipped to show the total number of students in quarantine at any one time.  […]

New South Carolina cases:  3,363 New Oconee cases:  69 New South Carolina deaths:  39 (none from Oconee on today’s report) A total of 13,734 test results received statewide turned up a 24.5% positivity.  

Libby Imbody and many others will extend the welcome mat next week to a group of visitors whose three-day trip to Walhalla could be a key to furthering the prosperity and popularity of the city’s core commercial district.  These visitors will represent the South Carolina Main Street Program, which Walhalla has joined for the purpose of further revitalizing the downtown.  […]

Here are the latest COVID-19 numbers reported by the tracking page kept by the Oconee School District.  Effective yesterday (January 20), a total of 16 cases of the virus — ten students, six employees.  The Seneca Middle School and the Ravenel Elementary School both had four new cases.  Three more of the school district’s younger classes have been sent home:  […]

A young Seneca man has been arrested in the investigation of a case of alleged criminal sexual conduct in which the victim was below legal age.  According to the Oconee Sheriff’s Office, the arrest yesterday of George Tony Webb Jr., 18, is the fourth arrest in a case investigation of information about in-appropriate relations allegedly between Webb and a juvenile.

President Joe Biden’s first-day action to reverse two actions by former President Donald Trump are being challenged, in part, by Jeff Duncan, South Carolina’s Third District representative.  Duncan joined fellow House Republicans Scalise of Louisiana and Mullin of Oklahoma in imploring Biden against his decision to rescind an important permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and for the new president’s […]